50 Cent Responds To 'Empire' Diss On Instagram; Is His Cookie Beef Real?

Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) always has the perfect diss for anyone who throws shade her way. Most of the time she saves her insults for characters on screen, but in the Season 2 premiere, Cookie had a message for someone in the real world. For almost a year now, rapper Curtis "50 cent" Jackson has been blasting Fox's hip-hop drama and the show decided to fire back.

In the Season 2 premiere episode, "The Devils Are Here," Cookie was walking through the Empire building with Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) when she said "50 Cent still taking jabs at us. Look what he put on the [Insta]gram, thirsty a--" she said.

Thursday, 50 Cent posted a video on Instagram saying "I can't believe Cookie would say some s--- about me. Thirsty? Me? Thirsty? Come on," he said. "Stupid." He added that he and Cookie go way back and that the two have hooked up. It's unknown if the rapper is talking about Cookie the character or Henson.

In an interview with Access Hollywood, 50 Cent said their feud started because the Fox marketing of "Empire" was similar to what his show "Power" did. Henson had said the feud was all in good fun and 50 Cent said he has a lot of friends on the show so he hopes it's successful too. "I can't have beef with Taraji, I'd lose," he dished.

The "In Da Club" rapper spoke to The Wrap about his beef with "Empire" in July, where he seemed to bury the feud by saying he was rooting for Henson to get an Emmy for her performance as Cookie. However, as he complimented Henson he also took another shot at "Empire." “‘Empire’ was able to put my entire first season in their first episode. That show moves so fast that like, I didn’t show up until episode three and Cookie comes home after 17 years in episode one. So, it didn’t take time to develop the story," He said.

The two have been trading insults since December 2014, but it's unclear if the beef is actually real. Henson fired back at the rapper's comments about "Empire" on Twitter in January saying shes pays attention to "$'s not cents." She later clarified the tweet to The Wrap, saying the rapper is a "comedian, who likes to push buttons."

Will "Empire" respond to 50 Cent once again? Find out when the next episode of "Empire" premieres Wednesday Sept. 30 on Fox at 9 p.m. EDT.